# WAPI (AM)

WAPI (1070 kHz, "Talk 99-5, Birmingham's Real Talk") is a commercial AM radio station in Birmingham, Alabama. It is owned by Cumulus Media. Until going silent in 2025, it carried a news/talk format, simulcast with FM sister station 99.5 WZRR. The radio studios and offices are on Goodwin Crest Drive in Homewood.
WAPI and WZRR carried local talk shows during the day, but at night they ran nationally syndicated shows from co-owned Westwood One including The Mark Levin Show, America at Night with Rich Valdés and Red Eye Radio. Most hours began an update from ABC News Radio. The stations were also Central Alabama's radio home of Auburn Tigers athletics.
WAPI broadcasts using HD Radio technology. The transmitter is located in Forestdale. WAPI's daytime power is 50,000 watts, non-directional, the maximum power for AM stations permitted by the Federal Communications Commission. Because AM 1070 is a clear channel frequency reserved for Class A KNX in Los Angeles, WAPI must reduce power at night to 5,000 watts, using a directional antenna, as a Class B station.

## History
### WSY and WMAV

The station signed on the air in April 1922. Its call sign was WSY and it was the second radio station in Alabama. It was owned by the Alabama Power Company. Informally, WSY stood for "We Serve You" even though the call letter assignment was sequential. Some five months later, the fourth radio station in the state, WMAV, owned by the Alabama Polytechnic Institute (now Auburn University) began broadcasting from Auburn. WSY was successful, but in 1925 Alabama Power decided to get out of the entertainment business.
The broadcast facilities were dismantled and donated to Auburn Polytech. At that time, the station's call letters were changed to WAPI, reflecting the ownership of the station.

### WAPI and NBC

In 1928, WAPI returned to Birmingham, in part due to the NBC Red Network's interest in affiliating with a station in Alabama's largest city. In 1929, ownership of the station was split among Alabama Polytechnic, the University of Alabama, and the Alabama College for Women (now the University of Montevallo). The broadcast power was increased to 5,000 watts.
In 1932, the colleges sold the station to a group of investors, doing business as "The Voice of Alabama". WAPI remained affiliated with NBC until 1940, when it became an affiliate of CBS Radio.

### Move to 1070

After sharing its frequency with KVOO in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for several years, WAPI moved to its present dial position in 1942. On December 1, 1947, it launched an FM sister station, WAFM. In 1949, WAPI launched the first television station in Alabama, WAFM-TV.
The Birmingham News purchased WAPI and its FM and television sister stations in 1953, switching WAFM-TV's call letters to WABT and changing that station's affiliation to NBC the following year. The Newhouse chain bought The Birmingham News in 1956; two years later, it renamed WAFM and WABT as WAPI-FM and WAPI-TV to match the AM station. Newhouse sold off the broadcast outlets to separate owners in 1980, at which time the TV station acquired its current WVTM-TV call sign. WAPI-FM would eventually become WJOX-FM.

### Popular music and adult standards

In the 1950s, as network radio programming began to lose its importance due to television's popularity, WAPI evolved. It became a full service, middle-of-the-road station of popular music, news and sports, featuring several local call-in shows at night. By the mid-1970s, it was the only Birmingham AM adult contemporary radio station.
In July 1983, WAPI changed to an adult standards format under the branding "Hit Parade". In January 1985, the station returned to its previous adult contemporary format. However, three months later, WAPI immediately returned to adult standards programming when crosstown rival WSGN (now WAGG) dropped that format. On January 1, 1996, WAPI became an all-news radio station. Over time, the station evolved into a mostly talk radio station.

### AM-FM simulcasts

On February 22, 2010, WWMM-FM (100.5) changed its call sign to WAPI-FM and dropped its former adult album alternative music format. The two stations began simulcasting for most of the day, with the FM side branded as the main station, calling itself "100 WAPI". However, on July 24, 2013, WAPI-FM changed its call letters to WJQX and flipped to a sports radio format, carrying ESPN Radio programs, as a sister station to WJOX and WJOX-FM. This left the news/talk format solely on the AM side once again for three years.
On May 23, 2016, co-owned 99.5 WZRR dropped its country music format and began simulcasting with WAPI. However, WZRR is now branded as the main station. Both stations began calling themselves "Talk 99.5", with WAPI's existence only acknowledged during for legally mandated station identifications.
On March 10, 2025, WAPI went silent. It was one of six Cumulus stations to close the weekend of March 7, as part of a larger shutdown of underperforming Cumulus stations.

### Transmitter and towers

Although it boasts the most powerful daytime signal in Alabama, WAPI does not travel as far as most other 50,000-watt stations due to the region's poor ground conductivity. It does, however, cover all of central Alabama during the day from a single tower, and can be heard as far away as the Atlanta suburbs under the right atmospheric conditions. At night, it cuts back power to 5,000 watts, using a two-tower array.
WAPI employs a directional antenna to protect KNX in Los Angeles, the main station at AM 1070, as well as the Canadian allocation for a 1070 kHz station at Moncton, New Brunswick (formerly occupied by CBA), and KYW in Philadelphia at adjacent AM 1060. This makes WAPI difficult to listen to, outside Birmingham and its close-in suburbs, at night.